Tasty (Kelis Album) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Tasty received very positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 80, based on 18 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Andy Kellman of Allmusic gave the album four-and-a-half out of five stars and stated, "Despite all the new assistance, Tasty is formatted much like Kaleidoscope and Wanderland, constantly swinging back and forth between bouncy pop and laid-back (not throwback) soul." Rolling Stone's Ernest Hardy referred to Tasty as Kelis' best work, writing it is "lighter and more cohesive than her ill-fated second album, 2001's Wanderland, more focused and mature than her 2000 debut, Kaleidoscope. Take away the Dallas Austin-produced tracks, two Neptunes rock attempts and 'Milkshake,' and you have a solid R&B album, one that's thickly speckled with hip-hop influences and nods to early Prince and Eighties Latin freestyle music." Hardy also cited her "raggedly sexy singing" on the song "Millionaire" as "her best performance on the album". Neil Drumming of Entertainment Weekly graded the album A−, calling it "Kelis' past—big beats, out-there imagery, and sex appeal—refined" and commenting that "much of the beauty of Tasty is in witnessing Kelis rise to the challenge of working with multiple imaginative maestros."

In a review for the NME, Tony Naylor viewed the album as "ar more complete than Wanderland or Kaleidoscope", adding that "such vacuum-packed musical freshness is maintained throughout." Dorian Lynskey of The Guardian, rating the album four out of five stars, described Kelis as a "parallel universe Beyoncé" and expressed that she "exploits her husky croon like never before, pouring it over lascivious double entendre and, well, lascivious single entrendre The likes of the Neptunes, Dallas Austin and OutKast's Andre 3000 weigh in with assorted flavours of pre- and post-coital soul, sighing to a close with Raphael Saadiq's Massive Attack-echoing 'Marathon'." The Independent noted that she "certainly takes the sexual initiative in several songs", but "ostly, though, Kelis keeps a watchful eye on her affections in songs such as 'Protect My Heart' and 'Trick Me', and has developed a decidedly jaundiced view of hip hop's lop-sided sexual politics, judging by 'Keep It Down'." Joseph Patel of Blender commented that Kelis is "as good playing a hair-twisting, gum-popping tart on 'Sugar Honey Iced Tea' as an all-grown-up cock-blocker on the crackling funk ditty 'Trick Me.'" Slant Magazine reviewer Sal Cinquemani felt that few of the tracks on the album are "as immediately thirst-quenching as the insta-classic lead single 'Milkshake'", and Pitchfork Media's Scott Plagenhoef opined that Tasty is "far from all doom-and-gloom". Adam Webb of Yahoo! Music believed that the album is "not as far out wild as Kaleidoscope but it is a consistently inventive and brilliant record."